Stolper

Hi,

I do not drink alcohol a little over 6 months now. I drunk for more than 20 years (with several pauses) on weekends, mostly once a week an equivalent of 2 bottles of wine or 8 beers (it was I guess binge-drinking). On second month after last drink i got anxiety like attacks lasting 2-3 days comming in waves separated by few better days.
The problem is I did not have an acute withdrawal shortly after stopping drinking.

My question is can you have protracted withdrawal symptoms without acute withdrawal?

I searched the internet to but found nothing. My therapist says I am an alcoholic. Ok, I admit alcohol played a big role in my life but I am not 100% convinced it is true.
Please share your experience.

Introvrtd1

I’ve absolutely felt this way too….Withdrawals hit me hard 30 days after I quit binge drinking…Like you said, no significant withdrawals symptoms the first 72 hours, but the protracted withdrawals were horrible!

I can totally relate.

Intro

Stolper

Thank you Introvrtd1 for sharing your experience. May I ask how longhave you had those withdrawals?
I am struggling 4.5 months now and the symtoms are still severe (only a little less acute), especialy when I face stressful situations at work. Together with anxiety I get tingling sensetions in my legs and I guess metal like taste in my mouth. What is odd, I do not experience cravings for alcohol at all.

LazaB

@Stolper You can find a VERY long PAWS thread in the Alcoholism section of the Forum , you will find a lot of helpful information there , basically many alcoholics go through that and unfortunately for some of them it can last for years , luckily the longer you stay sober the more symptoms get easier and start to disappear completely
I am going through the same thing so feel free to send me a DM if you need help.

Stolper

LazaB, thank you.

Dee74

Welcome Stolper
Alcoholic or not, with your level of protracted anxiety, I think you’re better off without drinking.

If it is PAWs, I hope you find it will lessen with time

D

LazaB

@Dee74 I don't think it matters if it's PAWS or PTSD or some phobia that came along with drinking , if it came because of alcohol it should get easier or completely go away after we stop drinking.
I think all of those disorders that came with booze will leave when we stop the booze and face them , no matter what they are.

Anna

I agree, Stolper. Whatever is causing your anxiety attacks, it will improve as you continue your sobriety. You might try meditation if you have not already done so. Also focusing on your breathing can help to calm you.

Stolper

Thank you all for comforting words. 6 months ago I decided not to drink. Then I was ok., but subconscoiously felt it would be the right chioce. Unfortunately, at the same time, I started to abuse coffee, what could trigger my anxiety attacks. My therapist told me that with coffee abuse I was still drinking boooze - at least my brain thought so.

LazaB

I respectfully disagree , coffee might be terrible for our anxiety but it's not even close to booze.
At least for me coffee can trigger an anxiety attack that can last for hours , booze triggers an anxiety attack that causes a binge that lasts 17 days.

Stolper

LazaB, I agree with you. I rather meant that coffee abuse could be so called last straw in my example. It might have speeded up the anxiety or even make it more intense. Moreover, I also abused exercise, running and cycling. I stopped it too at the similar time as alcohol.

Introvrtd1

The withdrawals lasted about 6 months, but they became less frequent and less intense.

Hang in there ….it gets better. Just takes time.

Stolper

thanks

novips

The following from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous comes to mind:

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks--drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery."

One suggestion is to attend some A.A. meetings and see if you find some answers there.

Stolper

Thanx novips
The last above sentence, seems to be very true and at the same time overwhelming.
From my experience, I recently startet to perceive tiny, simple things or situations providing good and pleasant emotions or state. In the past, to feel good i had to run 10km, ride a bike 100km or drink 2 bottles of wine with junk food.

DriGuy

I don't think I've ever replied to a thread about PAWS, because I don't think I've experienced it to any significant degree, and I'm not sure I can offer much. But I have done some reading on it, and I know what it is. And what I have read is that it does get better with time, although as with all the other parts of recovery, the time it takes varies. PAWS could last for 6 months. That was given as a worst case, but I doubt that this is a hard and fast rule. It sounds awful, I will give you that.

OK, so now I'm going to say what I think, without having experience PAWS much myself. What we do know as a fact about recovery is that it only works if you stay in recovery. The problem you are facing right now is how do you do that with PAWS? In my reading, I found, cut, and pasted these suggestions:

1. Seek help from mental health professionals
2. Practice self-care through a healthy diet, exercise, avoiding triggers, and establishing healthy relationships with the people around you
3. Talk about what you're going through with people you trust and who will not judge you based on your circumstances
4. Determine what triggered the flare-up of your PAWS symptoms so you will know what to do next time
5. Document your experiences through a journal
6. Keep yourself busy
7. Set reminders or write things down if you're having difficulty remembering things
8. If you're having a hard time sleeping, cut down on caffeine especially before bedtime
9. Establish a sleep-wake routine
10. Be gentle to yourself and don't rush things
11. Acknowledge that there will be bad days (if you fall, get up and start again)

Great, another boring list! Right? But most of these are what we should be doing in recovery to begin with. Some are more important than others, and the first 5 seem most relevant to me. It also seems like PAWS often shows up on a timeline that may coincide with that period of time when many of us begin to take our recovery for granted and we may stop being as vigilant or paying as much attention to what we were doing at the start. For me this comes back to one thing I believe about recovery... Don't stop doing it.

You may have a particularly intense circumstance dealing with PAWS that others don't, but the cure from my experience is always the same. I would suggest revisiting your initial commitment to the project, and reviewing the original and ongoing development of your recovery plan, which you should have already made. Maybe you will have to revise or add to your original plan. And don't give up. It will get easier. This whole recovery thing takes a lot of time and patience and continued effort. The greater rewards of recovery will still be waiting for you down the road.

The above list comes from https://www.addictiongroup.org/resources/faq/paws/

DriGuy

This applies to all programs of recovery, although I prefer "psychological change" over "psychic change." And even that is too heavy for my tastes. I had a professor one time talk about "internalizing" knowledge, taking information from credible sources, and rather than just acknowledging it, making it a part of our core belief system, training our willful and impulsive subconsciousness to actually embrace what it sees as inconvenient truths, so that it eventually stops annoying us with its childishness. This is the kind of change that we need in long term recovery.

Have you read the Naked Mind or Stop Drinking Without Willpower? It's what my description of "internalizing" makes an entire book about.

PAWS may be an unusually tough part of some recoveries, but in my reading, it also describes the symptoms to be more psychological and emotional, although it did talk about it as an issue of changing brain chemistry, which makes it sound partly a matter of chemical and biological. But the point is that you can change that. In my own recovery the transition from unnerving jitters and cravings (physical) to dealing with my own head games (psychological) was a definite change in symptoms that I separated into two stages of recovery. I got the impression that PAWS is more like those head games, but far more intense then the petty bickering from my alcoholic voice.

advbike

It might not be PAWS, you could just have anxiety issues, as many of us do. It's the main reason I started drinking decades ago - to overcome my social anxiety. Later I developed GAD - general anxiety disorder, but never too extreme, fortunately. So when we get sober we have to learn how to deal with anxiety all over again. And coffee is a big culprit in raising anxiety levels - I love it but can feel my stress and sensitivity to things going up after the third cup.

Another thing I want to add is that I am a lot like you in that I can't do anything in moderation. Way too much coffee, extreme running and biking over the years, and more. That's just compulsive behavior, and many of us have it. But the exercise is important because it really helps quell the anxiety - just don't overdo it, haha. DriGuy makes some good points. Diet and sleep are also really important.

I hope your anxiety comes down over time, as I am sure it will. Great job on 6 months!

Stolper

Thank you DriGuy for your input. I'm going to implement it in my daily routine. As for PAWS and if it is more of psychological than physical nature, I can only say that the brain does rebuild itself after ceasing longterm administration of given chemical, and it goes far beyond substance detox. Head games may be a part of it. I've found This Naked Mind by Annie Grace and going to read it.

Stolper

Hi advbike.
Good to have someone with similar traits. I started my "adventure" with alcochol in secondary school. I admit it helped me overcome shyness. With time it became a weekend habbit. As for my anxiety and possible GAD, I think it is possible. In 2017 I had the first nervous breakdown induced by work issues, weekend bingie drinking and running. In my opnion the decisive was work stress. My boss has changed and I got a chair in local government. What was funny I hated and feared public speaking. I was stuck there for 4 years with negative feelings. Moreover at work (I've worked there for 18 years now) I have to do public speaking sometimes and it maks me feel sick. It is well paid job but I hate it and at the same time fear to make a change. A beautiful disaster, isn't it?